


The Best Medicine Makes You Sick

by iyrie



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dream Sex, F/F, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, corrective rape, this is very dark sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:02:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23386318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iyrie/pseuds/iyrie
Summary: Danae Lavellan has a crush on Lace Harding. Solas will not stand for an elf indulging such unnatural desires.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas, Lace Harding/Female Inquisitor
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the kinkmeme back in 2016. Some small edits made.

Danae can’t stop herself dreaming about girls.

She has heard that mages should have better control about their journeys in the Fade. But she has only heard this recently, and her Keeper had told her little, and she quite enjoys dreaming about girls.

Tonight it is Scout Harding. The fade has taken the form of a field thick with green. Her arms stretch taut like her bowstring as she aims, freckles dust her cheeks and forehead like specks of gold in a river, her eyes glow golden. She wishes she was a proper Dreamer – can’t they take control? Danae is a mere observer, with arms too light and nerves too thick, and can only watch the dream-Harding as she moves on, ever forward, ever away from Danae.

When, for the second time, Harding visits Haven, Danae can hardly do anything but stew in the ache to be like her.

She’s felt this way before. She’s told herself over and over how immature it is, this constant longing to be like half of the women she sees. Danae had been young when it first happened – shem traders had come into Clan Lavellan’s lands, one of them a girl with hair black as soil and cut so short that Danae could see all of her pale gold neck. Her own hair had been down to the small of her back, and her mother had had to stop her cutting it all off.

And all the women here fill her with the same desire to become. When she meets Vivienne, with her gaze and skin cold as rocks, she turns her own heart to ice just to see what it’s like. Cassandra tries to teach her how to use a shield, because Danae wants to fight like her, but they both agree after a few days that Danae’s never going to learn. Josephine’s clothes smell like candle wax, and Danae breathes in deeply around her. She tries to impress Leliana with the ravens-calls she vaguely remembers her father making to summon his own ravens, but only gets strange looks.

Not Sera, though. She was full of hope when she first met her; seeing another with the same pointed ears makes every dream seem more attainable. It’s quickly deflated, though, the moment Sera calls Danae too elfy. Whenever she has to talk to Sera now she lowers her face so her vallaslin aren’t so obvious.

But it’s Harding that Danae’s ached for, these past few weeks.

* * *

In the dreams she has no control. Danae moves like liquid towards Harding.

Whenever she can snap into a lucid state, she takes the chance to explore the memories. In Haven they run thick. Andraste bleeds into a dragon bleeds into the Warden. Danae slips further back. She is an elf of old, vallaslin curling all the way down her arms, and when words flow from her mouth they are archaic, tasting of poetry. Harding is a few steps before her on the mountain path, imposed on the memory. Snow frosts her hair.

“Scout Harding!” Danae calls, knowing there will be no answer, but Harding turns to face her. Her face is tattooed black and harsh, and her eyes are empty of recognition.

Here the path narrows. She is pulled onwards by an innate compass, but looks down to find her footing. A wolf, that ancient companion of the Dalish, pads alongside her. She meets its golden eyes. The dream shudders and falls away.

“Hey, fade expert. What does it mean to see a dwarf in a dream?” she asks Solas, hopping onto the fence beside him. The wind bites at her. All she remembers of her dream is that Harding was there, and that she shouldn’t have been.

Solas crosses his arms. “If the dwarf is one you are close to, I expect the spirits take your memories as inspiration, and create the image from what they themselves remember of dwarves.”

Danae likes Solas. She likes his calm intensity. She likes his tales of ancient elves. He’s just as bad as Sera about the Dalish, but something about Sera makes her feel like her hands are too close to a flame. And when she’d mentioned her own humble attempts at exploration in the Fade, and traded her own small stories with his, he’d been a lot more welcoming. She sits on the fence by him, heels hooked over a slat, shivering. “Okay. So that’s how all people appear in dreams?”

“These days, yes. People can still meet in the Fade, though it is rare, and needs skill in navigating.”

She can tell he wants to talk about his own skill in navigating, and she likes to hear about it, so she leans in, and asks more.

* * *

In the dreams everything is golden. She flows through the glades like a river following gravity. Gilded arches and dappled shadows change their shapes and blend into the fracturing world. The sun splinters.

“Danae,” calls a smooth voice. She turns – or rather, her body does. “Andaran atish’an.”

It’s Solas. No, must be a spirit that looks like him. Their eyes meet, and Danae finds herself able to move again. “Aneth ara,” she tries, and suddenly feels inadequate in her informality. “Oh - I've never spoken to a spirit before – sorry if I was rude...”

“I’m honoured you think I am so present in your mind that a spirit might choose me," he tilts his head, a hint of a smile in his voice. "No, I found you dreaming, and thought I might bring you to a more pleasant place.”

“Where is this?”

“We have been here outside of dreams. Elvhenan stretched all the way down to the Hinterlands, once. The Veil is so broken here that we can step halfway across Thedas in a glance.”

It doesn’t look like the Hinterlands, but Solas knows so much more than her. Danae’s eyes skim the landscape, which is tamed into the frames of the arches surrounding them. They stand in a white stone shrine high on a cliff. Trees smother the hills, and crystals twine in the trees.

“Look,” Solas murmurs, “Redcliffe.”

“Where?”

He moves his head close, and points over her shoulder to a lake glistening like a sheet of silver in the distance. It takes a moment for the shape to match the map in her head. It’s Lake Calenhad, unrecognisable until she imagines Castle Redcliffe looming over it.

* * *

In the morning it still feels just as real. Danae’s never remembered a dream so closely before. She turns it over in her mind, feels smooth edges where it has blurred into reality. What a gift to still remember the night! She sees the curved lines of the Chantry, descended from the curves of the Elvhen shrine, and her ancestry wells up in her bones.

“Solas!”

He turns, smiling serenely, and greets her with a curt nod as she hops up onto the fence, beaming. “It was a pleasant surprise to see you last night, Danae.”

“I’ve never been so far in a dream!”

“In part, it was the weakening of the Veil that allowed us to stray so far from Haven. Most mages can only reach the surface of the Fade, the most recent memories, even now. It takes great experience and talent to delve deeper into the past.”

“I’ve gone pretty far before,” she says indignantly, though her heart’s not in it, and the idea of exploring by herself excites her. ”...Can you teach me?”

* * *

The Storm Coast lashes Danae with salty gales. It’s been a long cold struggle here, all the while feeling like a sail pushing against the wind.  
  
“Your worship,” Harding greets her, “for what it’s worth, welcome to the Storm Coast.”  
  
She always sounds so stressed. Her voice has that little strain in it that betrays fatigue under that sheen of optimism. Harding explains about the bandits. Mostly Danae’s listening to her voice, though, not her words, and when Harding turns away Danae watches her leave for a good long moment before having to turn and ask Cassandra what exactly she just said.  
  
“Ooh, you’re going all red,” remarks Sera delightedly. Her bawdy sing-song voice makes Danae blush even more intensely. “Thought you were too up your elfy elf-arse to like anything not elfy!”  
  
“It would be only natural for elves to desire elves,” Solas points out.  
  
"I don't desire - " Her face burns as she speaks.  
  
“How d’ya feel about being unnatural, then, Oh Mighty Herald? Getting all flustered about the smooshy little dwarf lady?” Sera snorts. “You want her to scout out your rift? Oh – oh, your breeches! Breach, breeches, yeah?”  
  
Cassandra sighs. “Sera, that’s enough.”  
  
Danae makes an effort to enjoy the sea air. She hears it’s good for the soul.

* * *

In the white darkness there is very little difference between dream and reality. Both are a milky blur. When starvation and exhaustion and ice are all gnawing at her mind, it doesn’t seem to matter so much. She sees shadowed figures in the snow but does not know whether they are dream or real, and does not care.  
  
For a long time nothing seems real at all. Even being proclaimed as Inquisitor Danae cannot shake the gauzy feeling of deep sleep. The faces that peer up and cheer become oval reflections on a tide. She's pretty sure that any moment now she'll wake up back in the snow again. All of this will just be a dying dream.  
  
Time slips by like water. Danae goes to enter the inn one day when a cheery voice cuts into her consciousness..  
  
“Inquisitor!” beams Harding. “Congratulations on the title! Nice castle, too. Can’t believe we never found it before. Glad we did!”  
  
Danae nods, tongue-tied. Her voice makes everything feel real and achingly lucid. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”  
  
“We’re stopping off for a change of supplies and personnel. Not me, though!” She strikes a pose. “In-di-spensable!”  
  
Up until now she could still feel frost lingering in her heart and lungs. Harding laughs and it all melts away, everything bright and real and good again. She's awake.

* * *

The temple is dark and echoes with a thousand spirits. Danae drifts over the threshold and her feet never seem to touch the ground. Square pools glimmer with faint veilfire. Ghosts of the Fade intrude on the dream for only a moment before disintegrating; the histories phase through each other like when she watches through a window and her own reflection gets in the way. In the centre, a path of cool stone welcomes Danae’s bare feet. She wears the cotton and simple fur of an ancient elf. Subterranean winds make her skin prickle.  
  
Her feet take her halfway across the path before the dream stops her short. There is a doorway tipped with a golden arch, and the dark centre gleams with the shadows of relics.  
  
Solas’s quiet footsteps echo behind her. His torch splashes gold against the walls. The golden dream-light dulls her nerves, stops her from even thinking to move. Her knees weaken. She crashes to a kneel, and then Solas takes her hands, pulls her backwards, lowers her shoulders to the path.  
  
“Forgive me, Danae. You will not remember my lesson, but you will remember what I have taught.”

“...Solas?” Talking is like drowning. Danae feels the Fade around her. She tries to find words, but lucidity is on the other edge of the honey-thick light.  
  
“You will understand when you wake. It is only natural for elves to desire elves, and woman to desire man. I am returning you to how you should be.”  
  
She lies. Her tongue is heavy like a sword she can't pick up. Solas’ long fingers methodically remove the thin cotton of her clothes. Wind courses over her body. She can't even shiver. When his fingertips brush her skin, there is a sick gratitude for their warmth. Her nipples harden in the air, and Solas’ eyes light on them hungrily. He kneels above her, eyes bright as if she is an experiment.  
  
She would fight if she could. She tries to lift her arms but her fingers barely move. Solas gently presses her arms down and lucidity flits away.  
  
Solas’ fingers work leisurely up and down her folds. She’s touched herself there before. His fingers feel alien and cold and methodical. They circle around her entrance, and though they are unwelcome Danae resigns herself to the fact they will enter. The light, teasing touch works her into painful sensitivity. She squeezes her eyes shut, but the rest of her body is unresponsive and she cannot retreat from the inevitable. Danae braces herself.  
  
The impact does not come.  
  
Time slips by, and Danae counts her heartbeats slowing. Then quickening, as Solas works some strange magic, and the calm insistent strokes begin to well into pleasure. She cannot fight it. The orgasm slinks up her spine and lies in wait. It hangs in exquisite balance. The slightest touch would send her over. Danae’s mind snaps into sharp focus for a second – if she can only kick him away, if she can only stand up – if she can –  
  
Solas tuts. He bends his head between her twitching legs. His mouth envelops her clitoris. A sickly pleasure bursts like a bitten berry. She drowns in it. When she comes up again she wants to gasp for air but can't make her body do it.  
  
Now he has settled into a lulling rhythm. As she recovers his fingers soothe her into a taut slick tension until her body burns with need and her mind shies away. Then his artful tongue coaxes her to the edge. The fall tightens her stomach and curls her toes.  
  
Over and over, until the dream dims and dulls like a reflection on bronze. Danae tries to grab at the jagged edges. In the morning she will hurt but she will remember and then she can make him hurt. She'll tell everyone what he did. She'll fucking kill him for what he did. What he did - it was something terrible, wasn't it?

She wakes in her tent, breathing hard. Some nightmare, she supposes, and presses her hands against her eyes until her heart stops pounding.


	2. Chapter 2

Sunrise over the Exalted Plains is silent and heavy with clouds. She has never seen this place outside of dreams and stories.  
  
It’s still another hour or so until they reach the camp they’re meeting Harding at. Danae had wanted to press on last night – she doesn’t want to make the forward group wait any longer. But level-headed Cassandra had made them stop and pitch tents, and though Danae had complained, Solas had mollified her with the promise he’d show her the most wonderful memory he could find.  
  
“Solas, I didn’t even dream these last few nights,” she whines playfully once they are on the move. “You better show me something really great tonight to make up for it.”  
  
“Of course. My apologies – we must have gone too far for you to remember.”  
  
That satisfies her.  
  
What satisfies her even more is the knowledge that soon she’ll get to see Harding. Her heart skips faster as they approach the broken spine of an aqueduct and the dwarf’s silhouette draws nearer. “Inquisitor,” she begins with that warm tired voice, and Danae is entranced.  
  
Harding’s got this passion, see, this bright intensity, and even when it’s spread too thin she’s got a magnetic intensity that makes Danae want to get as close as possible. When Harding off-handedly mentions the tragedy of the Dales, it all comes alive for her more vivid than she could ever dream. She gazes down at Harding, half listening to her words, half lost in her rasping voice, all of her swept along.  
  
“I wish we could meet somewhere happier,” she murmurs.  
  
“This place would have been happier once,” Harding says, gesturing to the broken stones. “It must have been so beautiful. Maybe even romantic.”  
  
Does she know that her words make Danae’s heart flutter? She feels light, giddy, drunk on the wan sunlight. There is nothing she can say to match this wash of joy. So she stays silent.  
  
Harding shifts from foot to foot, then chuckles. “Good luck, your worship!”  
  
And she's gone. Danae wishes she'd said more.  
  
Later, Danae turns to Solas: “Can you take people through memories if they aren’t mages?”  
  
“I believe so, though they may not remember it.”  
  
“How about a dwarf?”  
  
“I suppose.”  
  
“Great!" she grins. "Only that Harding’s mentioned how beautiful this place would have been once, and I want to show her for real. You think she’d mind?”  
  
She practically sees the idea form. Solas’ face, at first disapproving, softens at her enthusiasm. “There’d be no harm in trying.”

Danae leaps forward and hugs him tight. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

* * *

  
  
His cool hand holds Danae's cheek. Her head angled upwards, she has no choice but to meet his eyes. Around them, white walls melt into view.  
  
"I am truly sorry this must be done again. I was foolish to think you could be cured so quickly." Her skin crawls and she can't tell why, but he doesn't question. All makes sense in the way it always does in dreams. And anyway, it's Solas. She can trust him, she thinks, but something's off. His voice drips with regret. "Come, Danae," he beckons and she follows. The white walls curve into a long corridor.  
  
It is a narrow line between lucidity and dream. When she pays attention to her walking she nearly stumbles but when she regains her balance, she is the one in control. "Solas, what are you showing me?"  
  
The corridor opens out into a bedchamber that gleams with mosaic tiles. Light glares through wide windows and makes the bed painfully white. Scout Harding sits there, outlined in the sun. She's silent and still. Danae hesitates at the threshold, glances to Solas to make sure.  
  
"Go to her," he says mournfully. "She wishes to talk to you."  
  
Danae feels suddenly giddy. She whispers, "She asked you to bring her here? To see me?!"  
  
His head lowers a fraction.  
  
Harding sits on the bed, shoulders drawn tight. She looks as nervous as Danae feels. Danae sits opposite her, staring at her feet. She can't bear to look. Why did Solas give them a bed? Their bodies are hardly a hand apart. She can hear Harding’s breathing. "Lace," she begins, her tongue feeling too heavy. "It's good to see, you, uh, somewhere happier. Like you said, uh - "

"Yeah," Harding chuckles. Exhaustion lingers in her voice. "It's real pretty here. Uh, Elvhen mosaics, they're pretty, right? I never thought I'd ever see them so perfect."  
  
Danae can only think of the perfection sitting right next to her, a head's turn away from view. Her hand shuffles back until it brushes Harding's warm palm. "You, uh. You wanted to talk to me?"  
  
“Yes,” she says, warily. “I know it isn’t appropriate, your worship, but I heard what Sera was saying about, ha, you desiring me...”  
  
Danae is suddenly very glad they’re facing away from each other. She feels her cheeks grow hot. It’s a panicked batting away of the truth when she blurts out: “Don’t listen to Sera!”

Harding's voice deflates. “Oh - of course, your worship.”  
  
Danae feels sick. Harding sounds so disappointed. There’s a dream of a future somewhere where she’d said it was true, and where Harding hadn’t hated her for that, maybe even indulged her, and she feels that future flickering out. Her stomach drops.  
  
“No, no, wait - ” she can hardly stop herself from saying. Her fingers are shaking. "I mean, don't listen to her, I'd rather you, uh - hear it from me." The air seems thin and deflated now that the truth has come out. She turns to her side, eyes wide. Harding is fidgeting with her hands. She raises her head, meets Danae’s alarmed stare.  
  
“That’s a relief,” she half-chuckles. Her voice trembles. Harding swings her legs up onto the bed.  
  
Danae can’t move. Harding’s calloused fingers reach towards her, falter for a moment, then rest on Danae’s cheek. They’re warm and rough and Danae watches from a distance, not feeling a part of her own body, as Harding leans in and kisses her. Her lips are as coarse and chapped and _real_ as the rest of her. She smells of soil and wood and honey.   
  
Danae flinches away. She glances around the room. Solas is there, watching, and her spine chills. She’d go to ask him to leave, but before she can speak, Harding caresses her cheeks, pulls her back in for another kiss. It’s bright and warm like stepping into sunlight. Danae opens her mouth to taste her.  
  
“I’ve thought about this since we met,” mutters Harding once they part. “I’ve wanted you...”  
  
How can Danae deny her? Harding’s hands slip down from her face. One brushes across Danae’s neck, making her stutter a sigh into Harding’s mouth, and the other skims down to her breasts. Her touch is so delicate that Danae’s senses strain for the tips of her fingers.  
  
And it’s all suddenly so fast, and her clothes lie in folds on the bed, and Harding is naked too, her skin tanned golden, and the breeze golden as well. Too fast. Harding’s head dips, and she plants hot kisses in a trail down Danae’s chest. A finger circles and toys with her nipple. Hazy arousal flows through her.  
  
“What would you give – “ starts Harding, all coy. Her voice curls lazily in the gentle air.  
  
Solas’ voice cuts in. “I said no deals with her.”  
  
Danae’s thrown off. She'd forgotten Solas was there. He leans against the arch, arms crossed. “Deals? – Solas, what - ?”  
  
He sighs. “It will not harm you to know. You will forget soon. Danae, I wish I did not have to do this...”  
  
“Do what?” She wriggles up the bed, away from Harding’s hungry eyes. “What’s happening?” Danae tries to escape the bed but Harding’s thighs wrap around her own and when she grabs for the bedframe for leverage, Harding grabs her wrists too, so tight she can feel them go numb. She cries out.

Solas sits on the side of the bed and fixes Danae with a soft, melancholy gaze. "Danae, have you ever taught a child, or a pet? It must learn to associate harmful habits with fear or pain."  
  
Harding's fingernails dig into her wrists. Her bright-burning eyes glare triumphantly down. Her fingernails become claws.

There's stillness, for a moment, that Danae can't breathe to break. Absolute silence. Cold metal terror. Danae bites back a scream. Harding's face becomes twisted into the cruelest smirk Danae's ever seen. It brands her eyelids. She closes her eyes and still sees the demon.  
  
"Solas," she cries, "help," before remembering he can't possibly be real.  
  
She looks up, meets his cold eyes.

* * *

She looks up, meets his cold eyes.  
  
She screams. She can't help it. She struggles. She's held still. A flash comes to her of white hands seizing her wrists. She cries out again. Solas' face hovers over her in torchlight. When she realises whose hands they are, she calms.  
  
"I heard your distress as you slept," he offers once her breathing has slowed. "I apologize for interrupting your rest. I was merely concerned for you." He takes her blanket and dabs tears from her face, tears she hadn't even noticed. Her body still jolts in sobs. "Do you remember anything?"  
  
"Only - only brief flashes. I think a demon attacked me," and even the effort of talking is too much. Tears blur her vision. Danae folds her head into her hands and begins to weep.  
  
"Inquisitor," Solas begins tentatively, "if you wish, I will stay with you tonight, and ensure no spirit tries you."  
  
At first she isn't sure. Some clammy discomfort makes her sick at the thought of sleeping next to Solas. But she does, eventually, and when she wakes up in the morning, Solas assures her that no demon attacked during the night. She's calmer, more docile. Embarrassingly, though, she'd woken up with a dull arousal, as if the afterglow of an orgasm was still fading. She hopes Solas didn't notice. Her cheeks are bright red and she hopes he doesn't notice that either.

All through the day she wilts in embarrassment when they make eye contact. Danae leads everyone to a Fade rift but the moment a demon crawls out all long-limbed and dark-eyed she crumples. Sera yells at her to get up. Cassandra grunts and shields her as she trembles bonelessly. Like on the day they'd met, Solas takes her wrist - she sees white fingers around her arm and shrieks - and closes the rift for her. Her heartbeat doesn't slow until sunset, and then when they've set up camp, and the familiar actions no longer provide a comforting structure, Danae lies in the darkness of her tent, eyes wide open, scared to sleep in case the demon comes back. After an hour of this she gives up, lights veilfire, and sneaks over to Solas' tent.  
  
"Danae?" he says politely, glancing up from a book. "Another spirit?"  
  
"No," she mumbles, "I know it's stupid to be scared - would you mind guarding me again?"  
  
"Of course. You are the Inquisitor. I expect you have such power that the spirits are drawn to you... We cannot lose you to them, or to your own fear. Come, lie down." He tells her a story of the Fade. Lulls and cradles and hushes her, until the tenseness in her muscles curdles into deep, demonless sleep.  
  
She tries to sleep in her own tent once more, but when she wakes up it's with that pure heaving terror that hit her after the first demon attack. After that she's too scared to sleep without him.

* * *

  
  
The Emerald Glades becomes a sea of leaves before them as the green light rolls in the wind. She wonders how it must have looked to her ancestors when the crystal spires of Arlathan once reared over the tide. She'll have to ask Solas to take her into the Fade here one day. These days she doesn't remember her dreams. But the place is beautiful enough now, even without the thick overlay of memory. The air is bright with the scent of soil after rain. When Danae walks, the long grasses tickle her knees. Her stomach is tight with some inexplicable anxiety.  
  
She sees Scout Harding in the distance and her heart drops.  
  
"Solas, Cassandra, one of you go talk to her," Danae mutters, and finds a rock to practically hide behind. Cassandra gives her an odd look but goes off anyway. Solas soothes her, patting her shoulder.  
  
Sera hoots with laughter. "What? Worried she's going to jump you?" Even the thought paralyses Danae but she manages a terrified little laugh. "Nah, actually, bet you'd be the one to jump her. Heights, right? Cause she's a dwarf? Don't think she could reach even halfway to your tits."  
  
"That's enough, Sera," Solas commands sharply, "Not everyone shares your perversions."  
  
Danae's cheeks burn. She watches Cassandra talk. When Cassandra gestures to Danae, Harding's eyes slip over and almost make contact. Danae shies away, sickened. Solas smiles at her kindly.


	3. Chapter 3

The shadows cling to Danae's skin as she searches for Cole in all the darkest parts of Skyhold. It's been nearly an hour and she's considered giving up several times. Then she remembers how badly Sera unsettles her, and how much Solas seems to like Cole, and she spurs herself back into the darkness.  
  
She pokes around in the inn's attic. A soft breath slips into the air and Danae whirls to face Cole. Her pulse quickens as she blinks into his luminous stare. Imagining Solas reassures her. He thinks Cole's safe, so she's got to think that too. It doesn't make her feel any better.  
  
Cole peers at her from under his hat's brim. "You don't even know you're hurting."  
  
Danae had only meant to check if she could tolerate him. She laughs nervously, "I'm not."  
  
"They make you think it's a sickness so you'll smother it, stifle it, smooth it back until you're soft, sweet, suggestible, the only one special enough to make surrender."  
  
"I don't know what you mean." Danae takes a step back.  
  
"Medicine covered in gold so you never know it's poison. I can't let her waste herself. I can't let her indulge the sickness."  
  
She laughs. She can dismiss this as madness. "Alright, Cole. You don't mind coming out and fighting with us, right?"  
  
He nods. He looks like he's about to speak again, so Danae blurts out her goodbye. She leaves as fast as she can and tries to forget his unnerving certainty. As long as he can replace Sera.  
  


* * *

  
  
Danae's grown used to sleeping next to Solas. At first, in separate beds. Gradually the world looms more threateningly. Danae retreats to his bed and to his arms. His touch doesn't make her skin crawl quite so badly any more. Most days she wakes calm and drained, slowly blinking into dawn light, as Solas stirs beside her. They dream together sometimes.  
  
Today Solas wakes her with his rustling of the furs as he leaves the bed. She looks at him questioningly as he paces her chamber. "I heard a cry for help as I slept," he murmurs. "One of my friends - a spirit - has been summoned against its will."  
  
The idea of helping a spirit after what they've done to her... Danae shudders at the thought. But Solas' face is pained by his misery. His words carry a familiar mournfulness. "Then we'll help," Danae says with a nod.  
  
They set off for the Exalted Plains by afternoon. Cole is quiet, mostly. Every few hours he'll make some disconnected comment and Solas or Cassandra will humor him. It never gets quite so unnerving as what he'd first said, until they're traipsing across the plains. Solas leads them. Danae walks close by his side. Cassandra dutifully follows, and Cole drifts along as if it's only the wind that propels him.  
  
He muses, "You didn't do it to be right. You did it because you thought it was kind."  
  
Solas sighs. "A mistake, made by a much younger elf who had yet to learn moderation."  
  
"No. Not that."  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"It wasn't _kind_ ," he says with obvious distress. "You didn't think it was hurtful if it helped, but it only helps you."  
  
Solas falls quiet.  
  
He's gone by the time Danae has to sleep that night. It's been months now. She doesn't remember how to sleep without him. The face of his demon friend taunts her whenever she's close to slipping away. After what feels like an hour of fruitless concentration, Danae sits up, presses her fists against her face.  
  
"She wanted him to be happy, too."  
  
At the voice her pulse jumps. She clicks her fingers and lights veilfire. "Who - oh, Cole - don't do that - "  
  
He watches her, cross-legged, from the corner of the tent.  
  
"I could feel you hurting here. You're curled around the cut, closed up, so close you can't tell you were ever wounded."  
  
"Cole, I just want to sleep." Tiredness makes her static and feverish. She snaps more than she means to but Cole doesn't seem upset.  
  
"She misses the way you looked at her, open mouth, bright eyes, damp lips, like she was made of gold. Did you love her?"  
  
"I couldn't have." Danae's hands shake. She digs her fingers into her furs.

"You went warm, wishing, sighing for her." Cole's head tilts. "Are you happier with him?"  
  
"I'm _better_ with him."  
  
Silence thickens the air. "I don't know how I can help you, yet." His head dips under the shadow of his hat. "But I'm going to." Danae blinks and he's gone.

It's hard to sleep without Solas. Or rather she doesn't want to. She knows she'll need the rest and tries to reason with herself, but still she battles sleep until -

* * *

  
  
She dreams about girls. She hasn't dreamt like this since her first exploration with Solas. The air is sweet as clotted honey. Danae's in the shade of a grove, at the crest of a hill. The land, softened by dawn, falls around her.  
  
Harding is there. The sunlight kisses her limbs and turns them to gold. She's laughing. Her cheeks are flushed and full. She makes the climb look easy. Her body twists in her leisurely climb, each steady muscle contracting in turn. Beneath her armor Danae sees the tanned, tempting stretches of her inner arms. She's speaking but Danae can't tell the words.  
  
Danae waits for Harding to raise her head and have demon-dark eyes. Harding raises her head and her eyes are bright and brown and real. Somehow that's even more terrifying.  
  


* * *

Solas returns. Not long after, Cole leaves.

What he has left her with is the framework of sickness and cure. That makes it easier. It gives a name to why her desires are wrong. When Danae sees a girl and can't help but think she's beautiful, she sorts that away as a symptom. She blames Sera for infecting her. If it's a sickness, then it can be cured.  
  
If it's a sickness, then it can be spread, so she stops talking to Sera altogether. She hears a rumor one day about the Iron Bull and a male servant so she avoids him, too, and when the male servant in the rumor mutates into Dorian, she can't even bear to visit the library.  
  
The deep-rooted shame for her being doesn't stop at her perversions. Morrigan turns up, a human who knows more about being an elf than Danae ever will. Sera and Solas' comments about the Dalish weigh on her even more heavily now as Morrigan is praised. When she talks, Danae turns her head and carefully places her hands to cover her vallaslin.  
  
Solas is the only one she trusts enough to tell. "I know you don't understand why I'm not ashamed to be Dalish," she says into the still moonlight that fossilizes in the bedroom. "I know we've forgotten a lot. It hurts, though, that she gets to know."  
  
He sighs in what she's learned to recognise as contempt. "If your people did not preserve their heritage, they have no right to criticize those who did."  
  
"You're right, I guess." Danae realises how foolish she sounds. "But we still have some left, and we've got our own traditions, too. You talk like my people are so stupid. I don't... we're not." She furrows her eyebrows, frustrated by her own inability.  
  
"Then show me in our dream that you are not."  
  


* * *

  
  
The day Danae'd got her vallaslin, the swooping horns of Ghilan'nain, she'd been terrified. A full week of meditating on the gods and she was still nervous and as tight-strung as a bow. She still remembers lying on the boulder, staring up at the open sky. The stinging smell of the ink, the taste of blood in her mouth from biting the inside of her mouth too long.  
  
She remembers the rich crash of the waterfall nearby, the glossy leaves and the bright papery flowers, the creaking calls of harts. She remembers the screech of crows and the stench of leather and the liquid syllables of the remnants of Elvhen.  
  
When they step into the glade the sun seems filtered through pond water. The grass is patchy. The boulder is a listless slab of mossy rock. She tastes acrid ink in the air. This glade had been the heart of the clan, always full of people. Its emptiness is painfully wrong.  
  
Solas is unimpressed and so's Danae.

"I guess things always look more impressive to children," she mutters.  
  
She takes him to the cave where she'd learnt magic. The black depths are muddy grey. Once, at the paddock, halla had raged and headbutted the fences. A lone halla looks at Danae with a long dazed face and paws resignedly at the dusty ground. The statue of Fen'Harel that watched from under the waterfall had once intimidated her. She always hated his cold gaze. Now he's crumbling and his eyes are only stone.

Danae wants to sever herself from this dilapidated heritage. She wants to wipe the vallaslin from her face and disown her Dalishness.  
  
There are carvings of gods dotted around the shoddy aravels. They seem clumsily made as if by a child, even though she'd seen the Keeper's wrinkled hands perfecting the models. Solas picks one from its perch and examines it.  
  
"I see," he says.

* * *

  
  
She lies on the boulder, the da'len to his hahren.  
  
When Solas' face rises up above her, something within her recognises the scene. She knows this has happened countless times before but cannot place the memories. A ghostly deja vu. Her body responds with a sweet warmth and an enveloping arousal. The gods' wooden eyes are fixed on her.  
  
It feels right somehow. She stretches her arms just to check she can move. There's no need to, though. She's learned her part well. Solas kneels between her legs as if praying. His thumbs slip down her inner thighs and spread them. He leans in and laps at her core. His tongue circles around her clitoris with only brief teasing touches.  
  
Her mind meanders in its lucidity. Old forgotten dreams spring up. She knows with intimate certainty how his head looks bowed between her legs, how his tongue curls her delicately towards climax, how every other time she's been unable to escape. Familiarity lulls her into not resisting.  
  
"Solas," she says sleepily. She sits up, peers down to see him kneeling as if praying. One hand is buried between his legs, working casually up and down.  
  
His eyes widen and dart up to meet hers. "Danae - I did not expect - " His head jerks back, and he stands.  
  
Danae nods to his cock. "Do it."  
  
He shakes his head, clasps his hands, and backs away. Danae slips off the boulder, reaches out to Solas, but he recedes into the blurring distance, and the dream recedes along with him.

* * *

  
  
When she wakes up she remembers. It seems like nothing out of place. She's nestled into Solas' pale arms during the night. His chest warms her back and his breaths brush over her neck. She breathes in the clean scent of his skin. Danae's used to this now. She still sometimes shudders at his touch but it's getting better. She's getting better. She lies there in the dawn light and learns how to love the warmth of his skin on hers.  
  
She rolls to face him. He's already awake, blinking dully at the ceiling. "I remember now," she says, "I know what you did."  
  
He holds her gaze with regret. "Danae, I never meant to violate you - "  
  
"No - no, I understand why you had to do it."  
  
His pale face rises over her. The motion is a soothing echo of her dreams. "The best thing the Dalish ever did was create you," he murmurs. "You are unlike the others. You have a wisdom so great that I expected never to find it outside of the Fade. I could not let you wallow in ignorance, rejecting what you are meant."  
  
"What am I meant to be?"  
  
He shakes his head. "It would be kinder that you not..."  
  
"Tell me," she commands, and he bends his head down to kiss her.  
  
"Vhenan," he calls her, and again as he slips into her. She isn't expecting it, and bites back a yelp. The penetration is more painful than in the dream. Like being split open. His thrusts are slow and deliberate.  
  
Danae tries to tolerate the sensation of him moving inside her. He's quiet, his breaths shading into low moans. His fingertips graze her nipples and she shrinks away beneath them. His heartbeat thuds through her. He presses deep each time, surging into her core, gasping out passion between the kisses he dots over her neck. She watches, detached, as his lower lip trembles, and his eyes falter shut. Though she can tell she's wet she can't tell if she's meant to be getting any pleasure from this.  
  
"Vhenan," he says hoarsely. "I..." His breath is humid against her skin. Danae feels nothing, until he spills into her. Then she only feels mild disgust.

When she steps outside the impressions of his lips on her neck are still wet. Danae sits on the stairs and gazes over Skyhold. Her eyes catch on Harding, lingering outside the inn. Danae puts her fingers to her neck where Solas had kissed her. She's unique, she reminds herself, better than that kind of perversion. Her heart still pines. So she forces herself to remember: she only loves men now. She's Solas' vhenan. His seed is congealing inside her.  
  
Her stomach rolls but at least she isn't thinking of girls any more.  
  
That night he kisses her, his hand on her chin. His thumbs trace her vallaslin as he whispers the secret into her forehead. She can taste the regret in his words. He's been so kind to her. She can't turn him away now. Once the marks are gone she feels pure for the first time in months. Solas tells her she's beautiful. His fingers caress the bare skin with wonder.  
  
Danae doesn't know why but when she lies on her side her eyes go hot with tears. Her throat seizes up like she's about to sob or retch. All her body's gone heavy. She blinks sluggishly to clear the tears. That only blurs them more. Solas' arm rests like a snare over her. She stares at the light struggling through the curtains.  
  
Eventually the sadness passes. Someday, she thinks, she could be happy like this.


End file.
